Hidden in Plain Sight
by shadow kitty
Summary: Spin-off of T.G.: Ryo's first journey to the digital world, and a strange girl his age he meets named Raina. Their journey takes them into the foundation of the digital world, where the pairs fatal mistakes lead to fatal results...
1. Meeting them all

Chapter: 1

Ryo Akiyama was tall for his 8 years, smart, athletic, and completely ignored by his family in favour of a variety of hobbies and jobs. His fathers contact with him consisted of odd dinners, although his mother made sure that like all her children, his needs were taken care of. His older sister Anita rarely saw him at all, while his older brother Kurogane saw him all too much, his younger brother Takahashi was only 4. Thus, the second youngest Akiyama child became independent, living in the large house his mother meticulously cleaned and his father furnished with the latest technology and most stylish furniture.

When Ryo was 10, his mother left, his eldest sibling moved out, and Takahashi turned 6. It was an eventful year, to say the least. The house was significantly quieter with Anita gone, but she had been a distraction to Kurogane, with her she'd taken that distraction, meaning that because of Takahashi's annoying ability to cry at will, Ryo was the only amusing target. Ryo often supposed it wouldn't have been so bad if his father ever caught Kuro in the act, he was hardly ever home though, and Ryo knew he could suppose all he'd like, the reality of it was that his father would tell him he wasn't good enough, and he should handle Kuro on his own.

"Hi stick." Kurogane greeted him as he passed the living room on his way upstairs, an amused smirk playing at his lips. Ryo ground his teeth together, feeling his whole self tense. _I've been home for less then a minute, and already he's on to me. _Ignoring his brother, he continued as if uninterrupted on his path. "I said 'hello'." The older boy drawled, a little miffed at not getting a reaction. Ryo kept walking. Now Kuro was annoyed, _honestly, you'd think the brat could at least reply, grade 5 isn't _that_ tiring. _He stood up, all 6 feet of his 17 years sliding off the couch and striding towards his younger sibling.

_Can't he just leave me alone? _Ryo asked himself. Once he was sure his brother was off the couch and truly coming after him, he gripped his backpack tighter and changed his pace to a dead run. As he reached the landing and chanced a look behind him, he saw Kuro thumping up the stairs. _Damn him! _"Go away!" Ryo yelled as he raced down the hall towards his room, whipping through the door frame, slamming the door and bolting the small chain lock expertly with his fingers. He'd been very proud once he'd installed his lock, it had taken him a whole Sunday afternoon to buy it, read all the instructions, and carefully place it on the inside of his room door. It had been put in over 3 months ago, and his father still hadn't noticed.

BANG! Kuro hit the door, rattling the lock, and making Ryo smile. _Get through that, jerk._ As Kuro cried bloody murder, Ryo calmly deposited his pack on his bed, and sat down at the PC on his desk. He pressed the 'on' button and the machine whirred to life, signaling him with a soft beep when it was ready for his user name and password. Ryo typed both in and spun himself in a circle on his chair, whistling quietly while Kuro's muffled voice continued to yell.

"Give it up Kuro! You'll never get through!" He called back, it had almost become a daily routine.

Spinning his chair back to the monitor, he changed his desktop picture to a fall scene with sakura blossoms falling over a bike path, mixing their pink and white with the bold reds and oranges of the other trees leaves. It reminded him of a scene he'd once seen while wandering the digital world with Ken, when they were younger. He smiled at the memory, _I miss him, so much fun to just talk to… wonder what he's up to now?_ Idly staring off into space, a final, rather violent sounding BANG from his door brought him back down to earth. He smirked, _such a moron Kuro, today is no different from yesterday, or the day before it._

Still grinning slightly, he opened his e-mail account and sifted through his inbox, there were three new messages. The first was junk mail, delete. The second a forward from Damian, an American boy who was also in his grade, but in the classroom across the hall, _I'll read his later. _The third was from someone he didn't recognize, a female was the first impression he got from her screen name: bladedrain.

He opened the message curiously, surprised when he read it.

_Hello Akiyama-san,  
_

_I'm Raina Sahari, and I also have a digimon waiting for me somewhere in the digital world._

This alone took Ryo's breath away, _how could she know I've been there? _ He kept reading.

_I'm not familiar with the part of the digital world that matches up with Japan, as I come from a different country. I was wondering if you could maybe show me around if you know how to get there? I'm going to be here for a few years, so it'd be nice to see how things are done in Japan. _

_I get to school early, so if you want to meet me early on the playground tomorrow that'd be great, if not just e-mail me back. Thanks…_

_bladed rain_

Ryo stared at his computer screen. _This is… unexpected… mind you, I suppose there are other Tamers. She's certainly very blunt. _Leaning back, he tapped his fingers on the wood desk pensively, _I think I may be going in early tomorrow…_

-

The next morning, Ryo awoke and prepared for school early, making sure that his D-3 was in his jacket pocket before he left his room. Breakfast was a small affair of jam on toast, and after he'd brushed his teeth and combed his hair up, he quietly slipped out the front door.

It was a still morning, the sun had risen only a little while ago and very few people were out on the streets. Whistling a tune he'd heard somewhere, Ryo wandered down the sidewalk to his school, hardly 5 blocks away. He got there about 45 minutes before school was due to start, surveying the brightly coloured playground with his azure gaze.

There were more kids running around then he'd expected; a pair of boys no older then Takahashi were pushing each other on the tire swing, there was a group of girls maybe a year older then Ryo giggling by the fireman's pole, and a set of three kids standing on the highest platform of the playground, two girls and a boy. The girls were complete opposites by appearance, one with long raven black hair, cool silvery blue eyes, a black blouse and matte black shoes. The other girl had bright, coppery-auburn hair clipped to just below her ears, it stayed mostly closer to her scalp and the ends flicked out a little. She was wearing a white T-shirt reading 'my imaginary friend thinks you have serious mental problems', a pair of blue-jean Capri's and some well loved runners.

"Hey! Akiyama-kun!" One of the figures called, it took Ryo a minute to recognize him as one of the boys in the classroom across the hall. It was Damian, with his chin length white-blonde hair and trademark bomber jacket.

"Domitsu-kun!" He jogged over to the base of the playground tower, dropping his backpack and shinnying up the side, perching himself on the railing in front of the group. "Hi all." He greeted.

"Good to see you could make it Akiyama-kun, I'm Raina Sahari. No need to be formal." The coppery-haired girl introduced herself, smiling and watching him with her dark brown and green eyes.

The black-clad girl nodded a greeting from beneath her veil of hair, before introducing herself properly, she tucked it behind her ears. "Yukari Higurashi, nice to meet you."

Ryo nodded, taking in everything he could about the strange group. "Right…" He looked at them all once more. "So… how do you all know each other? Didn't' you just move here?" He directed the last question at Raina.

Damian answered his first question. "Yuka's been in my class since the beginning of the year- "

"My name's Yukari." She interjected, rolling her eyes at him.

Damian ignored her and went on. " - and Raina moved in next door."

Raina smiled. "I did a little bit of research on Tamers in the area before I got here, so mom convinced dad that it would be a good idea to move in next to someone who we knew had common ground if it was possible, Damian's neighbors had recently re-located, so that's where we moved in."

Ryo's eyebrows went up. "You're all – " They nodded. "I had no idea."

"Hm, neither did we until Raina came. Apparently there're a few others at the school, two in the grade 6 classes for sure, and three scattered around in the 2/3 split who haven't found their digimon yet." He let Ryo absorb this tidbit of information before asking brightly. "So, when's our first adventure? Anyone found a computer terminal with a portal?"

"My mom's, in her office at my house." Yukari replied coiling her dark hair around a mahogany chopstick and pinning it up in one smooth motion.

Damian's face lit up with a practically demonic smile of glee. "Excellent, so your house after school today?" She shrugged.

Raina looked to Ryo for support. "You coming too? It'll be fun!"

He debated for a moment, mentally running through his schedule and checking for anything he had to do. _Better to go to the digital world again then home and let Kuro bother me. _There was no question. "Of course I'm coming! Is this all ok with you Yukari? It's your house."

She smiled at him. "It's perfectly fine, my parents don't come home until at least 6 o'clock and I don't have any siblings." _Lucky, _Ryo thought.

"Excellent! All settled then, who's up for a game of grounders?" Raina asked brightly. The group decided unanimously that Damian should be it ("What? Why me? I'm _always _it!"), and scattered over the various equipment.

Ryo was surprised at how well the two girls were doing, at one point while he was sitting on top of the monkey bars, he watched Raina slide down the twisted pole, reach out to the foot-hold on the platform beneath the one Damian was on, then wrap her hand around it and swing wildly onto another platform before scrambling up the side of the equipment.

Where Raina was all energy and bursts of quiet movement, Yukari preferred to simply fade away from Damian. At one point he watched as Damian's fingers reached out towards her on the bridge connecting two parts of the playground. Yukari slid through the bars on the railing and hung herself out of his reach, gripping the yellow metal with one hand and balancing on one foot as Damian continued past. It was while Ryo was still baffled that Yukari hadn't been tagged that Damian ran into him.

"You're it!" He cried triumphantly as he opened his eys, then turned and saw Yukari slip back onto the bridge and Raina wave from the two-by-four that the tire swing hung from. They were both less then 10 feet from him. "How'd? I don't get it! I had no idea you guys were there!"

Ryo laughed. "Don't worry, I'll be it far longer then you were if what I've seen is really just the tip of the iceberg." Smiling, he launched himself off the platform he was on, landing on the gravel. "One!" He cried, closing his eyes. "Two!"

Damian knew he was expected to head to the opposite side of the playground, so he decided to be bothersome, clamoring up to sit on the top part of the fireman's pole. Ryo finished counting and looked around, as if he could be missed, there sat Damian like some sort of large ungainly bird. "That was really dumb." Ryo commented, grinning.

Damian shifted himself on the top of the pole. "Well, I didn't think you'd look up." He let a challenging smirk cover his face. "So come and get me Akiyama! I'm waiting…" Ryo tried to judge the moment, leaping at the ladder and climbing up as fast as he dared, eyes now closed.

Both boys were strong, and Ryo wasn't surprised when he heard a sharp exhale of breath, a pair of feet landing, and then quickly leaving the wooded platform in front of him. "Twit." He muttered. He also felt a movement travel through the bars behind him to his right. He feigned a step forwards and then ducked and stretched his arm back, catching Yukari's ankle.

"Gah! How'd you do that?" She asked once he'd opened his eyes and let her go.

He grinned. "My secret."

The game continued until the warning bell rang, calling the now large group of students playing on the playground and loitering on the steps into the building. Ryo jumped down off the two-by-four Raina had previously occupied and caught the sleeve of Damian's bomber jacket. "Hey, where do we meet to go to Yukari's?"

The blonde boy thought a moment. "I'd say just inside the door by the library, that's where we all met yesterday." Ryo nodded, and turned to retrieve his backpack when Damian grabbed his shoulder.

"Hey, have you ever been to the digital world? I mean, with a group?" Damians grey eyes met Ryo's azure ones.

He thought about his answer. "I've met people there before, other kids. I've never actually traveled there with a group though."

"Ok." The other boy nodded. "Any ideas on how we'd get back? I don't know about you, but my parents expect me home for dinner."

Ryo shrugged. "Raina seems to know what she's doing, she found all of us, right? I don't think she and Yukari would have just sat there silently if they didn't know what they were doing, it'll be fine." Damian nodded, letting Ryo go and heading for the door. _Well, Damian's sure nervous. It's not like we couldn't handle anything we ran into, Besides, I want to visit primary village, hehe, that place was so great… _Thinking his distracted thoughts, Ryo grabbed his pack and entered the small elementary school.

-

s/k: So, there's the first chapter. It's going to be a little AU-ish throughout, I actually have no idea what Ryo's family situation is like so bear with me. ' Otherwise, I'm pleased with it, I had no idea Damian or Yukari were going to come into the fic until they were standing with Raina on the playground, shrugs ah well. R R!


	2. On the way

Chapter: 2

_Casual Friday… I have never not wanted to be somewhere so bad in my life. _Raina was restless, she'd sat through the whole day and made sure she paid attention to her teachers Japanese, if she didn't, she knew she'd miss something important. _At least the uniforms aren't all that bad, and really, I made friends fast enough. _Carefully copying down the word problem from the board, she looked at her characterized name in the top right corner of her desk. _I wish I had a better hold of this language, it was way easier in Spain, couldn't we have moved back there? _ Her fathers business often forced the family to get up and leave with no more then 2 weeks notice, selling the house was always a rush, everything was always so scattered. Spain had been wonderful though, they'd stayed there for a record of 3 years, and she was almost more fluent in Spanish then English, which was the language she'd grown up speaking.

She sighed quietly, playing with her eraser on the desk. _Well, maybe we'll stay in Japan longer, it's not like I can't e-mail Emilio, and Amy's just as easy to contact…_ she began a doodle in the margins of the sheet she was supposed to be working on. _Mexico was awesome too, and Britain wasn't bad… _the doodle started to take shape, ears, fur, a feral looking eye. _At least I know people, at least the first day at school was Friday, at least I can speak Japanese, at least… at least there're digidestined here… _she pulled herself out of her thoughts, forcing herself to concentrate on the problem. _5 minutes… hardly 5 minutes and it'll ring, and we can go… _she worked on the problem, what order clowns were stacked on a ladder. _I think I solved this one in Canada at one point. _She thought, almost disappointed that it had come back. _It was red, blue, yellow, green, orange. _She outlined the work quickly on the sheet of paper, careful to write it in Japanese instead of Spanish or English. Finally, the bell rang.

Raina grinned, throwing the sheets of paper, her pencil, pencil box and eraser into her desk, one of the first to have her chair up on the flat surface. She looked around her for Ryo, she had been thrilled to find out he was in her class and not Damian and Yukari's, she knew someone, and it was so nice. She jumped up, trying to see over the heads of the other students. _There!_ He had just put his chair up, and was headed back towards the coatroom. She turned and retrieved her pack and coat, waiting for him as he pulled on his own coat.

"Ryo… come on… you're so slow…" She teased, knowing it would make him hurry up.

He rolled his eyes and threw his backpack over his shoulder. "It's not like they're going to get there any faster then we are." He grinned. "Little bit excited are you?"

She glared at him, "Yes! Come on! Ryo…!" He was laughing as she pulled him down towards the library and one of the back doors students were constantly using. They arrived to see Yukari rolling her eyes and Damian leaning heavily on the brick wall, laughing so hard he was having problems keeping himself upright and breathing at the same time.

Ryo cocked an eyebrow. "What?"

"No idea." Yukari replied, "He was just gazing off into oblivion when I walked in, and then he just burst out into this, hysterical fit." She grinned, amusement playing on her tan face. "I think he may be certifiably insane."

Raina watched as her oriental friend tried to restrain laughing at Damian's fit of laughter. "This is so random." She grinned.

Damian's insatiable giggling slowed, eventually coming to a stop, and he stood up properly. "Ok, we can uh… go now if you'd all like?" The group hid smiles and left the school building, letting Yukari lead the way to her home.

---

As the group came to a beautifully ornate iron gate, they stopped chattering to look at Yukari's house. The iron gate was black, with vines welded as an image on it, they twisted and bloomed around one-another. To compliment the metal, real vines grew thickly along the tall fence surrounding the little bungalow. It seemed to be a pretty traditional home, as they walked up the path to her front door, Ryo noticed the immaculately kept garden and the little fish pond, probably full of koi.

"Wow." Raina whispered. "Yukari, I love your house."

Yukari smiled quietly, "My dad's a lawyer, but he loves to garden. In the back there's a little greenhouse with his rare plants in it."

Despite its small size, the whole area gave a feeling like it was open, huge. Because of the tall fence/bush surrounding it a large amount of the outer noise was muffled, and the other houses around it couldn't be seen at all. The three children followed Yukari along the path that wound through the neatly kept lawn, hardly able to keep their heads from turning to look at everything they passed. When they did manage to reach the front door, Yukari slid her shoes off and politely held the door for the others, directing them to the kitchen first.

"Anyone hungry?" She asked with a slight smirk as Damian stopped dead in his tracks to star at the slightly ajar pantry door. "Yes, Dam, you can have that gross banana pocky you love so much." The blonde boy muttered 'thanks' hardly a second before he scurried over and tugged the box off the shelf, reaching in for a smaller pack of the crème-covered sticks.

Ryo raised an eyebrow. "I have to say, I'm more partial to the chocolate myself, that banana kind makes my stomach hurt." As an after thought he added: "Then I puke."

Raina giggled, "Poetically put Ryo." She reached into her jacket, producing a slightly wrinkled pack of her own pocky. "Strawberry guys, the best kind." Grinning, she pulled out one of the sticks and amiably munched on it.

"Well," Yukari smiled, "now that we all know we're rather picky about our pocky, shall we pack a snack and go to the digital world?" She was greeted by silent nods, her three friends, Damian resembling an over-sized chipmunk, Raina quietly watching Ryo as he sampled one of her strawberry pocky. She shook her head. "You guy are so weird."

---

Their snack packed, Yukari lead them out through another door into the living room, and once past the living room through another smaller sliding door, behind which Yukari's mother kept her office. More quite gasps and other whispers of excitement and awe filled the little room. It wasn't very large, but a bookshelf covered the wall to their left, made of some sort of dark wood, the desk branched out from the corner directly in front of them, made from wood like the bookshelves. Yukari sauntered over to the computer and pressed the power button calmly, letting the other three stand in the middle of the little room and be content simply looking at everything for a few moments.

---

"Digiport, open!"

"Digiport, open!"

"Digiport, open!"

"Digiport, open!"

As the four yells sounded out, the four children were sucked into the computer's screen. They seemed to slide past data concerning thousands of different things, and then were deposited beside a large sakura tree across the river from some sort of shrine.

Yukari stood up and her eyes grew wide. "Wow… I've never been here before." She murmured. The shrine was wooden and very simple looking from across the river. A small banner flapped in the light wind, declaring the name of the shrine in beautiful calligraphy, and through one of the windows she caught a glimpse of a sort of finned digimon passing by the opening.

"Es bastante bonita." Raina added in Spanish.

"What?" Ryo asked as he stood up, a perplexed expression on his face.

Raina shook her head. "Sorry, it is very pretty though, isn't it?"

Damian turned a full circle and took stock of their surroundings. "Well, what do we do first? 'Cuz I tell you what, I've only been here once, and I still don't know where my digimon is."

Yukari smoothed her jeans over her thighs and made a suggestion. "Why don't we find a way across the river and visit the shrine? I'm sure we'll find someone friendly there." The other three nodded, and the group began to follow the river down stream.

As they walked, Ryo took in the surroundings like a small child took in a visit to a sweets shop. _This is amazing! I wish Ken could see this, he'd be thrilled! _Then something else occurred to him._This whole thing happened really, really fast. Raina's been here for like, 48 hours, and here we all are… she certainly made an awesome entrance. _He shook his head, and they kept walking.

---

s/k: yeah, updated. It's all happening WAY TOO FAST! sigh Also, if anyone finds something wrong in my Spanish, please do correct me, still learning the language. vanishes in a puff of smoke R&R


End file.
